


jonathan sims: part-time archivist, part-time wanted murderer, full-time bitch

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Based on a Tumblr Post, Canon Asexual Character, Comedy, Gen, Humor, M/M, Season 3, Season 3 AU, a bit cracky, everyone thinks jon killed leitner and they revere him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: Jon didn't kill Jurgen Leitner, but no matter how many times he tries to tell people that, they just don't seem to believe him! It's not all bad, though: while heisa wanted murderer on the run from the cops, Leitner was apparently so universally despised that Institute employees and Avatars alike are tripping over themselves to help him out. Now, he just has to figure out how to clear his name (though that's easier said than done).
Relationships: Jon & Several Cats, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 213
Kudos: 256





	1. being a wanted murderer is something that can actually be so personal and also make you a small-time celebrity

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off/inspired by [this post](https://bigowlenergy.tumblr.com/post/634174393511264256/i-fully-and-completely-believe-that-if-it-had) by @bigowlenergy on Tumblr! It was such a funny concept that I immediately wanted to write it. I'll be posting these chapters as I write them, which will hopefully be pretty frequently now that I'm on break :)
> 
> Please enjoy and lmk if ya liked it!

Around midnight on the night after he’d walked into his office to find Jurgen Leitner’s beaten and bloody corpse well into the process of permanently staining the carpet, Jon was rudely roused from his already fitful sleep on Georgie’s couch by the sound of his phone blowing up with texts. 

This was unusual for two reasons. First, basically no one outside of the immediate Archives staff and Georgie even had his number, because he literally had no life outside of work. And second, why would he, a currently wanted murderer, be getting any texts from people at all? He had assumed the (remaining) Archival Assistants would be smart enough not to contact him, but _apparently_ not only had he been fucking wrong about that, whoever it was also had no sense of texting etiquette and would not stop sending goddamn messages!

Jon groaned, then stretched his arm halfheartedly over to where his phone was practically vibrating itself off the coffee table and turned it on, squinting at the sudden brightness of his lock screen in the dark room. 

He unlocked the phone and stared at the messages app uncomprehendingly. Contrary to his prior prediction, it wasn’t any of his assistants at all, but a group chat with a long list of numbers he didn’t recognize. Was this some sort of weird spam thing?

Then, he started reading the messages. Bafflingly, they were all what looked like...London addresses? Okay, what the hell was going on here?

Jon sat up fully on the couch, kicking his way out of the tangled sheet Georgie had lent him, and started scrolling his way up in the group chat until he reached the first message. 

_Hey, Jon,_ it read, _don’t freak out or worry about how we got this number, but this is Harry from Research at the Magnus Institute! I made this group chat because I heard you’re wanted by the police for murdering Jurgen Leitner! All us Institute employees think it sucks that you had to go on the run for doing something that was actually a massive public service to the entire world, and you deserve a Nobel Peace prize, but the least we can do is let you hide from the cops at our houses. Everyone please drop your address in the chat, no this isn’t weird, we would all be honored to let you crash on our couches. Oh, and also, you don’t have to reply in this group chat, and honestly you probably shouldn’t because I’m sure the police are trying to track you with it (or something, honestly I’m not really sure how police work works)!_

Jon read the message another three times, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. But nope, it still said the same thing. And text notifications with people’s addresses were still popping up at the top of his screen. 

Okay, maybe he should get Georgie just to make quadruple sure he hadn’t suddenly lost his ability to comprehend the English language. Or if he was reading it right, maybe she would be able to help him parse through the all-encompassing emotion of pure bewilderment he was currently experiencing. 

He got up from the couch, phone in hand, and padded over to her bedroom door. There was a strip of light shining from beneath it, so thankfully she was probably still awake. 

“Georgie?” he called, knocking lightly on the door. “I have a bit of what one might call a situation here, and I would truly appreciate your insight.”

“Oh God, what is it?” Georgie asked, somewhat muffled through the door. After a second, Jon heard footsteps and the door opened, revealing Georgie’s concerned face. 

“Uh. So. Somehow an Institute employee got my phone number and created a group chat? And they know I’m on the run from the police because of the murder the police _think_ I committed, except they _also_ think I committed it, except they’re _happy_ that the man is dead and are now offering up their addresses so I can come hide from the cops at their houses?”

Georgie blinked at him for a second, then snatched his phone from where it’d been dangling limply from his hand. “Let me see that.” She squinted at the phone, eyes flicking back and forth, then looked up at Jon, then back at the phone, then back at Jon. “Wow. You...were not lying. Also what the fuck, _that’s_ why you asked to stay here? Oh shit, you didn’t really kill the guy, did you?”

Jon huffed out a breath in frustration. “No, Georgie, I just said that! I didn’t kill him, but everyone thinks I did! But on a related note, I’m glad you also saw the same messages I did because I sort of thought I was losing it for real this time.” Silver linings: Jon might have been a wanted murderer, but he wasn’t crazy!

Georgie stared at his phone, more contemplatively this time. “Wait, so this guy everyone _thinks_ you offed, what’s his name—Jurgen Leitner? Why are they so happy you killed him? I mean, I know your Institute is weird as hell, but still, this seems disproportionately celebratory for, like, a murder.”

“Uh, I. Well, I can’t say for sure, but if I had to guess, it’s probably because of his library of fucked up books.”

“Jon, I’m going to need you to elaborate.”

Jon sighed. “Okay, in summary, he collected a bunch of evil supernatural books, stamped his nameplate on them, and made himself a library, and then, naturally, evil supernatural things raided the library and stole the books and spread them all over the world, and now they’re what cause a good portion of the paranormal events we end up investigating at the Institute.” 

“Ahhhhhh,” Georgie said, nodding. “That’ll do it.” She handed him back his phone, which had finally stopped vibrating, and clapped her hands together. “Well! I believe you about not murdering the guy, so as much as I’m not a fan of getting arrested for aiding and abetting, you can stay here for however long you need. Although,” she continued, sounding suddenly contemplative, “it might actually be safer if you take some of those people up on their offers of hiding you. I mean, it’s better not to stay in one place for too long, and the cops might dig up that we know each other somehow.”

Jon made the most disgusted face he could manage in hopes of conveying how utterly ludicrous he found that idea. “Georgie, I appreciate the advice, but I’m not going to go stay with some random stranger who just happens to work at the same place I do, _and_ who thinks I actually killed the man I’m accused of murdering!”

Georgie was uncowed. “Jon, I’m not going to kick you out, but I seriously think it might be better! Look, they clearly adore you; they’re not going to rat you out.”

“You don’t know that,” Jon muttered. “Maybe this is just some—some really strange ploy to get me to lower my guard!”

“Oh come on, you think the police are that smart?” Georgie asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Jon folded his arms, perhaps a bit petulantly, but you know what, he was on the run for a murder he hadn’t fucking committed, so he was allowed to be a little childish. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going, and that’s final.”

— 

“Uh, hello, Harry. How are you...doing today?” Jon said stiltedly, smiling in what he hoped was a sane, non-murderous way at the man in question, who’d just opened the door to his flat. 

Harry looked him up and down somewhat confusedly before it must have clicked who Jon was, because then the man burst into a radiant grin and shook Jon’s proffered hand vigorously.

“Oh my, Jonathan Sims, here, on my doorstep! I’m tickled! This is such an honor, I’m so glad you decided to come—”

“Could we perhaps, um, go inside?” Jon interjected politely. “Since I’m somewhat wanted for murder at the moment?” He nervously adjusted Georgie’s duffel bag, filled with a variety of old clothes he’d left at her place when they’d broken up during uni that she had generously returned to him this morning, to fit better on his shoulder. 

“Of course, of course, come in!” Harry said, ushering him over the threshold and glancing surreptitiously around, maybe to make sure that there weren’t any police officers lurking somewhere down the street. Obviously, there weren’t any, because Jon had been glancing surreptitiously around literally the entire trip here and would definitely have noticed them. 

“Okay! Well, welcome to my humble abode,” Harry said cheerfully, gesturing around the small flat. It looked like your typical home of a single, late-30s man who researched the supernatural for a living (and yes, Jon was guessing about the single, late-30s part, but judging by the amount of papers and books scattered around and the dishes piled in the kitchen sink, there was probably no significant other in the picture). Harry, unfortunately, continued to talk. “And can I just say, I— _we_ are all so grateful to you for ridding the world of that monster, Jurgen Leitner! This is honestly like having a celebrity over! If celebrities were, you know, murderers running from the police. But hey, it was a good and just murder! For the benefit of the world!”

Jon, beginning to sweat from embarrassment as he always did at any amount of praise, and also because he was just slightly uncomfortable with how comfortable Harry was with cold-blooded brutal pipe murder, decided he’d better intervene before this got any more awkward than it already was.

“Thank you! Really, uh, really appreciate that. May I ask, if you don’t mind, um. Where did you get my cell phone number?”

Harry had the decency to look at least slightly abashed at that. “Ah, well, you know your assistant, Martin?” Oh, for the love of. Of course Martin had been the one to go handing out his cell number all willy-nilly. How many times had he told Martin that it was For Emergencies Only?

Jon resisted the urge to sigh deeply and bury his face in his hands. This was an urge he had often when it came to matters of Martin. “Yes, I’m aware of him.”

“Well, me and a few others, we approached him and basically told him what we told you, that we were so grateful to you for Leitner’s death, and we’d just really like to help, and well, the poor man just seemed so guilty that he wasn’t able to help you out since he’d be one of the first people the police would suspect of hiding you, so he agreed to give us your number so we could help in his stead!”

“Oh. Fantastic,” Jon said, attempting to keep his contempt to a minimum for Harry’s sake. “Also, I don’t mean to be rude, or to ruin your impression of me, but to tell you the truth...I was not the one who killed Leitner.”

Harry just shook his head, smiling, like Jon was a child with frosting smeared all over his mouth claiming that he hadn’t touched the birthday cake. “You don’t have to lie to me, Jon, can I call you Jon? I can see you’re incredibly humble, but there’s no need to hide the truth of this wonderful thing you’ve done for us all!”

Jon closed his eyes and tried to school his expression into something suitable for being a guest, specifically one who was also an accused murderer hiding from the police. It involved several more cheek muscles than he usually used. “I truly...appreciate your, um, appreciation of me, but I’m telling the truth.” He gestured to his arms. “Look, do you really think I have enough upper body strength to bash a man to death with a metal pipe?”

Harry waved him off. “I won’t hear a word of it! Your arms look great. Please, let me take your bag so they can rest after the workout they must have had with Leitner.”

Jon took a second to wonder/mourn how his life had led to this moment, then handed over the duffel silently. Just—fuck it. Clearly Jon wasn’t going to get through to this man no matter what he said, mostly because Harry was delusional enough to believe that Jon’s weak noodle arms (as they had been christened by Tim and the rest of his assistants during a particularly embarrassing incident involving a filing cabinet that Jon had vowed never to speak of again) could have been used to pipe murder Leitner. 

“I’ll get you set up in my bedroom, and I’ll take the couch!” Harry continued cheerfully. “After all, you’re a guest of honor! Also, I hope you don’t mind cats — mine usually sleeps on the bed, but I can get her to move—”

“No!” Jon said quickly. “I don’t mind at all.” 

This whole situation might be awful and embarrassing and terrible and embarrassing (had he mentioned embarrassing?), but if there was a cat involved… Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	2. it's about the omelettes (*chef's kiss*)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your kudos and comments!! Please enjoy this next thrilling installment in Jon's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week :)

It really wasn’t so bad. 

Yes, the cat (whose name was apparently Mr. Meatballs, for some godforsaken reason), attempted to kill Jon at least three times during the night by sitting on his face and smothering him in fur, and howled like a banshee whenever Jon tried to get it to stop murdering him, but you know, that was just part of the charm of staying in a home with a cat! And honestly, waking up to nostrils stuffed with cat hair was preferable to waking up to a phone buzzing with notifications in Jon’s book, so. 

Okay, fine, it fucking sucked. But Jon was trying to count his blessings — he could be rotting in jail right now! Granted, he would probably actually be able to get some sleep in jail… 

Jon was startled out of his infinite loop of rationalizations by a soft knock at the door. 

“Good morning, Jon!” Harry said through the door. “It’s Harry,” he clarified a second later, as if Jon would have otherwise assumed he was a very friendly, knowledgeable home invader. “I just wanted to see if you wanted breakfast! I’m taking requests! I make a mean omelette, if that’s something you’re interested in!”

Good God, how was he so cheerful this early in the morning? Maybe Harry actually was some sort of supernatural creature, because Jon had been convinced for years that there was no way morning people were entirely human.

Jon rubbed his eyes and tried to un-groggify his voice. “Hello, Harry, thanks. Just tea for me please, if you’ve got it.”

“Oh, okay. Of course!” Harry said, though he sounded a bit disheartened, which almost made Jon feel bad (almost—he had his reputation as a cold-hearted bitch to maintain, here). 

Harry was silent after that, so Jon assumed he’d gone back into the kitchen to make the tea and commenced his daily struggle with the sheets to get out of bed. He was never totally sure why he got so tangled up in them every night no matter where he was sleeping, but it might’ve had something to do with the nightmares (they were always slipping out of his mind as soon as he woke up, but he was pretty sure last night’s had involved teeth, apples, and a bunch of mannequins. Yeah, his subconscious was fucked up, what about it? That’s what working at the Magnus Institute did to a brain). 

But naturally, Jon had been wrong about Harry going back to the kitchen, because as soon as he managed to untangle the sheets and get out of bed, Harry poked his head in through the bedroom door and got an unobstructed view of Jon in his pajamas. Which normally wouldn’t have been so bad, because he usually just slept in his clothes because he was constantly spiraling, had no control over his life, and fell asleep at his desk—well, used to—half the time, but somehow Georgie had convinced him to wear her What The Ghost merch pajamas that were covered in cute little baby ghosts and looked like they were made for children. (Not that he would ever tell Georgie that, because her podcast was practically her baby and she might never speak to him again if he slandered its merch like that, but to make a long digression short, they weren’t exactly his ideal outfit to wear in company.)

Harry stared at him for a second, and Jon stared back, silently daring him to say something. If Harry thought it was out of character for Jon, the great Murderer of Jurgen Leitner, Scourge of the Supernatural Community, to be wearing baby ghost pajamas, he kept it to himself, because all he ended up saying was, “I just wanted try you again about those omelettes—I swear they’re my specialty, and I’d be so honored to have a hero like you try one! And of course, you’ve got to keep your strength up in case you run into any of Leitner’s books, or something!”

Jon blinked. Decided this wasn’t a battle of wills worth having while wearing What The Ghost pajamas. “Um. Sure?”

Harry beamed. “Excellent! I’ll start making them right now!” He hurried off into the kitchen, closing the bedroom door. 

Jon sagged back against the bed. Christ, social interaction was exhausting. Especially when the person you were socializing with looked at you like you’d hung the moon because they very mistakenly believed you’d murdered some man in cold blood by bashing his head in with a pipe. It was just a weird vibe, you know?

Thankfully, Jon was able to change into actual clothes without any further incident, and when he got out into the kitchen, he had to admit, the smell of the omelettes cooking was pretty damn good. 

Harry waved at him from the stove, and Jon nodded back politely. Then, of course, Jon’s phone, which he’d reluctantly brought with him from the bedroom so he could be up to date just in case some more people decided they absolutely _had_ to contact the wanted murderer, vibrated annoyingly from his pocket. Maybe he should just put it down the garbage disposal or something, because couldn't the police track your SIM card or whatever? Or maybe that was just on those procedural cop shows. Ugh. 

Jon fished the phone from his pocket and read the message. 

Oh, fuck. 

Apparently one of group chat members (they were still all just random numbers in his phone, because no way was he putting these people in his contacts list) had gotten a tip off from their brother, who got it from his cousin, who got it from a friend who was a detective that liked to gossip about interesting cases, that the police had somehow figured out about Harry hiding Jon and were probably going to come raid the flat in the next hour or two. 

“Shit!” Jon said, leaping up from the chair at the tiny dining table he’d sunk into dazedly while reading the message. “Ah, it seems the police have figured out I’m here, so I think I had better go before we both get arrested.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” Harry said, in a tone that seemed more appropriate for someone finding out they couldn’t go feed birds in the park because it was raining than discovering they were perhaps minutes from being arrested for aiding a wanted criminal. “I really wanted you to be able to try my omelettes!”

“Harry, I need to go. Now,” Jon said, desperately trying not to have a breakdown in a stranger’s living room. 

“Meow,” said Mr. Meatballs helpfully, from where he was perched on the arm of the couch. 

“How about you go grab your bag, and I’ll package one of these up for you to go?” Harry asked hopefully, holding up the pan of half-cooked omelette.

“Forget about the omelettes, we are both about to be _arrested_ ,” Jon snapped, wondering for the second time in as many days how the fuck this was his life. 

Harry sighed and put the pan down. “You’re right. Here, just pick one of the other people from the group chat; I’m sure they’d be happy to have you!”

“But that’s probably how they discovered you were helping me in the first place!” Jon began to pace back and forth in the small area of open space between the couch and the kitchen, which meant that he was really only able to take about three steps in either direction. 

“Oh, I doubt it. It’s probably just that I didn’t go to work today because I wanted to make you breakfast in honor of your heroic deed. Since, you know, it’s a Wednesday.”

Oh shit, it _was_ a Wednesday. Jon wasn’t good at keeping track of days of the week at the best of times, and nothing about the past couple days could be remotely described with the word “best,” but also goddammit, seriously? 

Jon looked back at his phone, scrolled up to the addresses, and picked one at random, because that seemed safer somehow. Okay, he just had to get there without running into the police. Easy! He’d done it on the way to Harry’s flat, right? Totally the same thing.

Okay. Okay! Okay. He was good. He was great! This was fine. Being a wanted murderer was nothing compared to getting eaten alive by worms or chased by a horrific mutated thing that had stolen the body of one of his assistants and taken over her life with none of them the wiser for months and—

Jon stopped pacing to lean against the wall for a second. Took a deep breath. 

Right. Time to break this into steps.

1\. Get his duffel bag and phone charger from the bedroom.  
2\. Say goodbye to Mr. Meatballs.  
3\. Get the hell out of this place.  
4\. ????  
5\. Profit (also known as: find himself in an at least temporarily safe place).

All right, he felt better already. Kind of.

Jon quickly accomplished the first two points on the list (Mr. Meatballs turned out to be very sweet when he wasn’t busy trying to suffocate Jon), and had his hand on the doorknob before he decided perhaps he’d better also say goodbye to Harry and thank him for being a good host so he wouldn’t change his mind and turn Jon in for being an ungrateful guest. 

“Harry, uh, thank you for hosting me. You were so...welcoming. I appreciate it.” Jon attempted to rearrange his expression into a smile. Hopefully it worked. 

“Oh, no, the pleasure was all mine!” Harry said. He’d left the kitchen at this point and was now holding a piece of Tupperware out at Jon. “Please, take this omelette!”

In the interest of time, since he knew in his bones he’d have to physically fight Harry to reject the omelette offer, Jon grabbed the Tupperware and shoved it into his duffel bag. 

“Well,” Jon said. “Goodbye!”

Then he walked out the front door, completely not ready to face the unknown and mentally beating the shit out of yesterday-Jon for ever agreeing to this stupid, group chat-induced hideout plan in the first place.


	3. manila envelope (derogatory)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy another little interlude, and leave a comment if you're feelin it!! I promise characters you actually know will start showing up next chapter ;)

The address of the next employee wasn’t too far away, so thankfully Jon was able to get there without (much) incident. (He wasn’t counting the “hiding from a random cop that happened to be walking around at the Tube station by ducking into the men’s restroom that actually just so happened to be the women’s restroom and nearly getting beat over the head with a purse” series of events as an incident because he had blocked it completely out of his head and was never going to think about it again, thank you very much.)

It was another small flat, Jon noted as he approached the building’s entrance, checking over his shoulder for the forty-third time that minute to make sure another police officer hadn’t appeared magically behind him. Hey, it was a possibility! You could never be too sure!

There was no one behind him, like the last 42 times, so Jon turned back to the front of the building and tried to figure out the intercom system. Fortunately, the person whose address he’d chosen had also helpfully included their name in the text, which Jon was able to match to one of the buttons on the panel after much squinting and muttered cursing at his glasses for being smudged. 

He pressed the button next to “Natalie Silver,” which was the person’s name according to the message, though with the weathering and smearing of the label, it looked more like “N alie Si r.” (Jon had spent several seconds considering whether or not this was some sort of secret message trying to warn him about this Natalie, like “N, a lie, sir,” but ultimately decided there was no way anyone leaving him a secret message would have enough respect for Jon to address him as “sir.”)

The intercom buzzed for a bit, and then the line crackled and a woman’s voice said, “Hello, who is this?”

Jon cleared his throat. Best to be discreet, right? “It’s, um, from the group chat? You offered to let me stay with you?”

The woman, presumably Natalie, was silent for several seconds, long enough that Jon thought she might’ve just hung up on him, but then she said, loudly, “Oh my god, Jonathan Sims? Are you Jonathan Sims?”

Jon hissed involuntarily and twisted his neck around to look behind him again. Thank god, no people still, but Natalie had been so noisy that several pigeons were taking off from a nearby tree in a distinctly frightened manner.

“Yes, tell the whole city, why don’t you?” he muttered into the microphone. “Not like I’m wanted for murder, or anything.”

“Ah,” said Natalie, “right, sorry! This is just so exciting! You’re like, a celebrity, you know?”

Jon sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m aware. Not to be rude, but could you please let me in now? If you’re still willing to house me?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” Natalie practically chirped, and there was the distinct _click_ of the building door’s lock. 

“Thank you,” Jon said, and then opened the door and stepped inside. 

— 

Natalie was just as cheerful and friendly as Harry had been, as well as equally unwilling to believe the truth Jon tried to impart upon her: that, of course, he had not actually been the one to violently remove Jurgen Leitner from this plane of existence. 

“I’ve been falsely accused,” Jon attempted to explain, perched awkwardly on Natalie’s couch and staring pleadingly at her across her coffee table. “I was out of my office on a cigarette break for a few minutes, leaving Leitner there, and when I came back, he was already lying dead on the floor, ruining my carpet.”

“Oh, no, Jonathan Sims, you totally don’t have to lie to me! Don’t worry, I’d never rat you out. You really did the whole world, nay, the whole _universe_ a favor!”

Jon closed his eyes for a moment just to really marinate in his despair. This was...hopeless. “Just call me Jon,” he said finally, defeated.

“Roger that, Jon it is! Can I get you, like, a cup of tea or something? That’s really the least I can do for such a hero!” Natalie smiled shyly at him, looking almost starstruck. That was definitely not an expression Jon had ever seen directed at him before, and he was rapidly deciding he Did Not Like It. How famous people could stand it, Jon had no idea, because this was already giving him anxiety. Jon was clearly not cut out for being a minor true crime celebrity (Supernatural Edition).

At this point, Jon had been silent for way too long already, so he accepted Natalie’s offer of tea with a smooth, “Um, yes. I mean, about the tea. Uh, tea would be great. Thank you,” and used the brief minute of privacy while she was in the kitchen with her back to him to have a quick, silent panic attack with his face pressed into one of the couch cushions. This had been happening with some frequency lately, whenever he thought too hard about the concept that, yes, he was, in fact, a wanted murderer, and he was, in fact, probably going to go to jail as soon as the police caught him (which was absolutely a when, not an if, no matter how many despisers of Jurgen Leitner/admirers of his accused murderer were willing to help him out), and his life, in fact, was so fucking ruined right now. 

He was knocked out of his spiraling by something pressing down on his leg, which made him jump nearly a foot off the couch and scared the something, that turned out to be a cat, half across the room.

Hey, another cat! This one had long, black fur that was currently puffed up like the spines of an angry porcupine, but probably would ordinarily look very nice. Panic (almost) instantly forgotten, Jon called to the cat in his most reassuring voice, apologizing for scaring it, and stretched out his hand gently for the cat to sniff if it decided to forgive him for such a grievous slight. 

Natalie must have heard him, because she said from the kitchen, “Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, that’s Missile Launcher, Missy for short! She’s soooo sweet. Oh, I hope you aren’t allergic!”

Once Jon’s brain had processed that series of sentences, he assured Natalie that he wasn’t allergic and decided to refer to the cat as Missy just for the sake of his sanity. 

“Hello, Missy, I apologize for scaring you. I hope we can still be friends?”

Missy regarded his hand with a fair amount of fear and disdain at first, but soon her fur began to flatten and she made her way over, butting her hand against Jon’s fingers affectionately. Jon smiled and scratched her chin, then ran his hand gently over her back, and Missy started purring almost immediately.

Jon almost devolved into baby talk and kissy noises, but valiantly restrained himself to a soft “awwwwwww” under his breath, in hopes of maintaining a modicum of dignity. 

Natalie made her way back into the little living room with a mug of tea for each of them. She beamed when she saw Jon and Missy (who had hopped up into Jon’s lap at his point), saying, “You two are too cute! Oh, I have to get a pic of this for my Instagram, let me grab my phone.”

“Please do not post a photo of me on Instagram.”

“Oh, shit, right, wanted for murder. Forgot about that with how cute you and Missy were being, sorry!”

Jon gave Natalie a polite smile that he hoped didn’t look _too_ strained and stroked Missy’s fur gently. This was fine. Just because Natalie wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer didn’t necessarily mean she was actively trying to sell him out. No one who owned a cat this amazing could be too bad of a person, right?

Then, just as the silence between Jon and Natalie was starting to become awkward, there was a knock at the door.

Jon’s gaze shot to Natalie nervously, but she just shrugged. “I’m not expecting anyone.” 

Oh, Christ, had they found him already? Jon cringed back into the couch, waiting for the police to blast the door off its hinges and carry him away to rot forever in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed, but nothing happened. 

Natalie, fearless (or perhaps just clueless), set the mugs of tea she was still holding on the dining table and approached the door, peeking through the peephole. After a moment, she turned back and announced that there was no one there. “Actually,” she added, “it must have been a neighbor or something, ‘cause there’s no way into the building other than the front door with the intercom.”

Well, that was a bit ominous, but at least he wasn’t being dragged away to prison kicking and screaming right now. 

Natalie opened the door a crack and stuck her head out, presumably to check the hallway for the mystery knocker, and after a few moments of twisting her neck around, made a surprised sound. She bent down, straightened up, then turned around to show Jon what she’d scooped off the doorstep. 

It was an oddly thick manila envelope, with Jon’s name and nothing else on the front. Well, that was never a good sign. He took back what he’d thought earlier; this was far more than a bit ominous. 

“Looks like it’s for you!” Natalie said, as if Jon was incapable of recognizing his own name. “Secret admirer, maybe? I’m jealous!”

She held it out to him, and Jon stretched forward to reach it. Missy meowed in protest and exited his lap in a huff at the movement. Fine, Jon needed his hands free for this damn envelope anyway.

He inspected the envelope carefully as Natalie watched and sipped her tea (he really should be wearing gloves, because who knew what terrible supernatural curses this thing could be infested with), but it just looked like a normal manila envelope. Maybe it _was_ a normal manila envelope and he was just a paranoid idiot. No, he had to think positive. He was _positive_ he was a paranoid idiot and making a fool out of himself in front of his host. 

Envelope thus inspected, he decided to risk opening it. Inside was...a bunch of Magnus Institute statements?

Well, that was weird. Jon, as usual, carefully ignored the strange clench in his stomach that felt something like hunger and inspected the statements. They were just...normal statements. Huh. Maybe Natalie had told someone he was here and they’d delivered them for whatever reason? But Natalie had seemed just as surprised as he had to see them. 

This was definitely going to bug him.

But as he drank Natalie’s tea (which was surprisingly good, though, not that Jon would ever admit it, not quite as good as Martin’s) and traded stories of the weirdest supernatural things they’d encountered (it turned out Natalie worked in Artifact Storage, so there were A Lot of stories there, and she was actually not terrible to talk to once she dropped the whole “celebrity worship” attitude), Jon felt himself almost...relaxing? It was almost...pleasant? 

It could never last, of course. (The urge to read the statements in the envelope, which Jon had purposefully left on the coffee table, far out of reach, gnawed relentlessly at the back of his mind.) For now, though, Jon was safe(ish) _and_ having an unusually nice conversation _and_ there was a cat. So, things were looking up.


	4. in which things, for once, go well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter today, but I wanted to let each avatar have their own! Hope y'all enjoy :)

For the next few weeks, Jon bounced around the houses of probably half the Magnus Institute’s employee roster, always like three quarters of a step ahead of the police. Somehow, they kept getting tipped off, and somehow, Jon kept getting tipped off that they were tipped off and always had just enough time to choose another address and run. He also kept getting fucking manila envelopes from his mystery supplier, full of paper statements and eventually actual tapes (thankfully he found a tape recorder in his duffel to play them on, even though he could have sworn he’d forgotten to bring one with him), which seemed to be gradually pointing towards the threat of some terrible clown ritual that the manila envelope deliverer wanted him to stop? Maybe? (Since the only communication Jon had with the person/entity feeding him the statements was his own name on the front of the envelopes, it wasn’t entirely clear what the hell they wanted him to do with the info.) He was also pretty sure the police tip-offs were related to the mystery supplier, because no one else but the people he was staying with knew that he was there, and they were all so incredibly enamored with him that Jon doubted they’d ever call the cops (that or they were really good actors, which in theory was possible, but Jon was _trying_ to cool it with the paranoia). 

But anyway. Jon couldn’t get the idea of the damn clown ritual out of his head no matter how many cats he pet (and it was a little weird that like, every single employee he stayed with had at least one cat, but maybe it was just a personality thing, like people who enjoyed cats tended to be into the supernatural? Or maybe Elias had a weird bias against dog people?), and to be honest he was getting really exhausted with all the hero worship from people who had a very, very skewed idea of his life and accomplishments, so when the latest tape pointed to some woman named Jude Perry being a possible lead in cracking this whole clown thing wide open, Jon jumped at the chance to get out there and track her down.

Yes, it was probably going to be dangerous. She was clearly some kind of supernatural creature, and him walking around meeting people in cafes in broad daylight was probably not the smartest course of action for someone still wanted by the police. But goddamn, did Jon need something in his life that wasn’t manila envelopes, other people’s bedrooms, or conversations in which he tried and failed to convince people that he wasn’t a murderer. (Well, that last one he had actually given up on about five houses ago, but the point stood). 

So: Jude Perry. 

She looked pretty much like Jon had expected (very intimidating and slouched in the cafe chair like a lazy panther), but the second she opened her mouth and started talking, Jon’s expectations were shattered. Or, to be more thematically appropriate, they went up in smoke. 

Because the very first thing that Perry said to Jon, after the raised eyebrow that Jon assumed meant his reputation had preceded him but his appearance (skinny, scraggly, exhausted, looking like he’d been on the run for weeks because he had) hadn’t, wasn’t anything scary, or creepy, or threatening. Instead, she simply said, “So you killed that shitbag Leitner, huh? Nice one.”

God fucking damn it. The whole supernatural community knew, too? That’s how it was going to be? 

But, wait, actually, he could use this! If he just played along this time, then maybe he’d be able to get some sort of actual information out of her.

“Yep, that’s me! Killer of Jurgen Leitner. Happy to, uh, have been of service,” Jon said, smiling congenially in a way that almost certainly came across as painfully awkward. 

Perry stared at him for a second, raising her other eyebrow. Then she shook her head, presumably dismissing his weirdness, and gestured at the seat opposite her. “Well, Mr. Leitner Killer. Archivist. What brings you here?”

Jon sank into the seat with no small amount of relief. “Ah, it’s Jon, if you don’t mind. And, uh, honestly? I’m just trying to figure out some stuff about clowns.”

“I think Leitner Killer has a nice ring to it, so I’ll stick to that. Clowns, though, huh?” Perry tipped her head thoughtfully. “Can’t say I know much about them. Fire? Yeah. Wax? Yep. Razing the earth and choking the sky with smoke and ash? For sure. But clowns aren’t really my thing.”

“Uh,” said Jon eloquently. “I...see. What about mannequins?”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Perry said warningly, “I appreciate the Leitner thing, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let you walk all over me. Quit it with the compulsion, Leitner Killer. I’ll tell you, but only on my own terms.”

Compulsion? What was Perry even talking about? Jon didn’t _feel_ like he was doing anything, but he nodded mutely anyway. Best to stay on her good side, he figured. 

“All right, so,” Perry began, and then explained about Nikola Orsinov, and then, just for fun, apparently, walked Jon through her whole origin story (or something???).

“Wow,” Jon said politely, once she finally finished waxing poetic about the fire that was constantly burning through her veins and encouraging her to melt people to death. “That was. So much information. Really, uh, really cool, thank you.”

“No problem. We all owe you one for offing Leitner, that piece of shit.”

“We?” Jon echoed. 

“Yeah, you know, the whole supernatural community? Pretty much every avatar hated that bitch and his library of fucked up books,” Perry said easily, taking a swig of her coffee, which was still steaming vigorously. (Jon’s tea, by comparison, was ice cold. It had been a long origin story. He almost wished he, too, was a “servant of the Lightless Flame” so he could stop having to drink cold tea all the time.)

“Oh,” Jon said, because he really didn’t know how else to respond to that. The _whole_ supernatural community? “Glad I could help?”

“Speaking of, if you’re interested, I know a guy you might want to talk to. Well, know is a generous word—it’s more like we hate each other from afar—but I do know where he lives.”

“Sure? That’s...very kind of you.” This was strange. Good things were happening to Jon after talking to an avatar? He wasn’t getting eaten by worms or speared through the shoulder by knife hands? It was almost too good to be true, so of course Jon was on edge about it. 

But Perry just told him about Mike Crew (no relation to evil hallways Michael), gave him the man’s address, and then clapped Jon on the shoulder jovially from across the table.

Jon flinched and almost shrunk back into his chair, remembering very clearly what Perry had said about her wax/heat/fire powers and the many people she had described burning to death in gory detail, but her hand was only slightly above normal human skin temperature, and it just felt like being touched by someone who should really be in the hospital for their high fever. 

He attempted to play off his flinch as a shrug or something, probably failing miserably. Perry just rolled her eyes and said, “Good luck, Leitner Killer. I’m sure you’ll get those clowns eventually.”

Jon thanked her, Perry removed her hand from his shoulder without incident, and they both left the cafe, Perry in the direction of some fancy, douchey red muscle car, and Jon towards the nearest Tube station. 

He’d been so nervous before, but after how well the meeting with Perry had gone (beyond his wildest hopes and dreams, really), Jon was almost excited to talk to this person Perry had recommended, especially if he felt the same way she did about his “murder” of Leitner. 

Mike Crew, whoever the hell he was, had better be ready for some scintillating conversation, because Jon was on his way!


	5. a room with a supernaturally good view

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the process of writing this, I realized that last chapter, I for some reason wrote Jon as like..not knowing who Mike Crew was, despite the fact that he had canonically read several statements about the dude. So consider Jon not having read those statements as part of this AU! Feature, not a bug!
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy and I'll see you guys next chapter :)

Jon cursed for like the thirtieth time as he tripped over yet another step on this seemingly endless staircase and his duffel bag, which was hoisted up onto his shoulder, swung around to smack him in the chest again. 

According to the address Perry had given him, Mike Crew lived on the top floor of the building. This would normally be fine, except naturally the elevator was broken, which Jon found out from a hand-lettered sign that ended by saying “Sorry :(” and helpfully provided a wiggly arrow pointing in the direction of the stairwell. Jon had been struggling up these stairs for what seemed like hours (though was probably more like three minutes), and he was convinced there was some kind of supernatural fuckery going on, because the building hadn’t seemed anywhere _near_ this tall from the outside. 

Just when Jon came to the conclusion that he would have to relinquish what little pride he had left by sitting down on the stairs to catch his breath before he passed out, he turned the corner and found that he had reached the last flight of stairs, hallelujah! He paused for a second, just to make sure that passing out thing didn’t happen, and when his body didn’t keel over, dragged himself up the remaining steps and made it into the hallway. 

Thankfully for his lungs, the number by the flat nearest to him turned out to match the one from the address he’d gotten, so Jon knocked a few times and prayed that Crew was home and he hadn’t climbed the Mount Everest of staircases for no reason. 

There was no noise inside the flat for several seconds, and Jon was deeply considering slumping onto the floor in despair for a bit, but while he was in the middle of attempting to command his aching legs to bend, the door opened and a remarkably short man with a lightning-like scar climbing up his neck stared at Jon somewhat quizzically.

“Can I help you?” asked the man, who was presumably Mike Crew.

“Yes,” Jon said, embarrassingly breathlessly. He cleared his throat and tried to subtly take a ginormous breath of air. “Um, I’m Jonathan Sims, from the Magnus Institute, and I was wondering if—”

“Oh man, you’re Sims? The guy who killed Leitner?” presumably-Mike-Crew interrupted excitedly.

Jon hoped his face was not displaying the bone-deep weariness that was thrust instantly upon him as soon as he heard those words, since that would probably not be a great first impression. He painstakingly coerced the edges of his lips to twitch up into something resembling a smile. 

“Yes, that’s me. I see word spreads quickly. Uh. And you’re Mike Crew?”

Crew smiled back at him, probably in a much less forced manner. “Oh, call me Mike. But yes, you’ve got the right flat, and it’s an honor to meet you! Please, come in.” He swung the door open wider and gestured inside.

Jon nodded politely and stepped past him into the interior of the flat, and was momentarily dazzled by the light streaming in from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the entire far wall. 

Mike seemed to notice Jon’s distraction. “Like what you see? Best view Fairchild money can buy.”

“What?” Jon asked, rubbing his eyes and blinking in a futile attempt to see anything other than green sunspots. 

“Um, nothing. Can I get you a cup of tea or something?” Mike said quickly.

“...Sure, thank you.” Mike seemed just as friendly and grateful as everyone else who thought he’d killed Leitner had been, so Jon was reasonably sure he wouldn’t poison the tea. Probably.

Jon took a seat on Mike’s couch, setting his duffel bag down next to him, as he waited for his host to make the tea. It was facing directly towards the windows, as if instead of settling down to watch some TV for entertainment, Mike just stared out the windows. Although, to be fair, Jon read about traumatic supernatural encounters to get his kicks, so it wasn’t like he could really judge. Between the top floor flat, the windows, and piercing blue of Mike’s eyes, it wasn’t really hard to determine which of the Powers he belonged to. (Perry had been nice enough to fill him in on all the names of them, after roasting him mercilessly for being an Archivist “pleading for knowledge,” since Leitner had only told Jon about a few of them before becoming his office’s fresh new floor decor.)

After a few minutes of staring out the windows (the view really was quite hypnotic, once Jon’s eyes had adjusted), Mike tapped him on the shoulder and held out a cup of tea. Jon tried to disguise his frightened flinch (and dear god, he had to get those under control) as him readjusting his sitting position and took the tea gratefully. 

Mike sat down beside Jon on the couch with a relaxed sigh. Jon assumed this meant Mike probably wasn’t going to throw him out the window or whatever it was Vast avatars liked to do with their victims, and allowed himself to relax a smidge, too. 

“So, wow. You killing Leitner. That’s pretty fucking cool,” Mike said, taking a sip of his tea. 

“That does seem to be the consensus. I can’t say I realized quite how...unpopular he was,” Jon said honestly. 

“Oh, really? Well, trust me, you did everyone a favor. If you ever want to get coffee or something, maybe dinner, and tell me about it, just let me know. You know where I live now.” Mike winked at him, and Jon almost choked on his tea.

“Uh,” Jon said, trying desperately to keep hot tea from going down his trachea, “I’m, uh, very— _so_ flattered, but, um, not really looking to date right now.” Or ever, he added silently. Dating always came with...expectations that Jon was very much not interested in having to talk himself out of or otherwise deal with (yeah, dating when you were asexual and sex repulsed to boot kinda fucking sucked), but that was honestly so far down the list of Jon’s problems these days that he rarely had time to even think about it, let alone wallow in it.

“Ah, no worries,” Mike said, though he did look a bit crestfallen. Jon had to wonder how often asking out a random man who showed up on your doorstep really worked out. 

They stared at each other in silence for a second. Jon took a looooong sip of tea. 

“So!” Jon said, once he’d swallowed the tea (this time without choking on it). “Do you happen to know anything about clowns?” A brilliant segue, truly.

“Um,” Mike said, looking at him oddly. He was probably already thinking Jon’s rejection had helped him dodge a bullet. “Not...much? That’s more of the Stranger’s area, and I tend to avoid them when I can.” He shuddered a bit. “Fuckin’ creepy, if you ask me.”

“No argument there,” Jon agreed. “But you haven’t heard anything about a ritual, any sort of clown apocalypse, maybe?”

“Nope, but I really hope you’re not suggesting that’s a thing that’s going to happen,” Mike said, his brow furrowing slightly.

“Unfortunately, that’s where signs seem to be pointing.” Jon took another sip of his tea. It was pretty good when it was going down the right pipe. 

“Well, sorry I can’t be of more help. All I’ve heard about is someone named...Nicole? Nikola? Something like that. She’s supposed to be a living mannequin, maybe? Honestly, I don’t understand the Stranger at all.” Mike gestured expansively to the unusually blue sky visible through the windows in front of them. “All this and you choose to hide in alleys and be a mannequin?”

“I can’t say I understand it either, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t planning to destroy the world,” Jon said, and then sighed. “Well, thanks for the help. And the tea.”

“Oh, hey, you don’t have to go so soon!” Mike said quickly. “Let me tell you my avatar origin story!”

Jon tried to politely refuse, because Perry’s avatar origin story had been more than enough for one day, but Mike had already started talking and was steamrolling over Jon’s protests with no sign of stopping. Damn Jon’s terrible, supernatural tongue-loosening powers!

Jon sank back into the couch, resigned to hearing some awful, sadistic tale full of throwing people into the sky or kicking them off buildings or whatever the hell Vast avatars did for fun, but Mike’s story was surprisingly tragic, and Jon got caught up in it enough that when the knocks sounded on the door, he came back to awareness slowly like surfacing from a deep ocean. 

Mike broke off talking about leaping out of a tower to escape sentient lightning to ask Jon if he’d been expecting anyone else.

“Definitely not,” Jon said, his nerves already on fire. If Mike wasn’t expecting anyone, and Jon definitely wasn’t, that meant...oh god. This was Not Good. This was very Not Good. 

Mike had gotten up while Jon was realizing how screwed they were, and he was already halfway to the door. “Mike!” Jon hissed urgently. “Don’t answer that! It’s probably the police, and if you recall, I’m wanted for what I did to Leitner!”

Thankfully, Mike heeded Jon’s warning. His eyebrows went up, and he said, “Oh, shit, right. Forgot murder was illegal for a second.”

There was a lot to unpack there, but Jon didn’t have time for that right now, because he needed a plan on how to get the hell out of here. His eyes flicked involuntarily to the windows, which was useless, because they were many, many stories up and he was not making it out of that jump alive. His brain felt scrambled with panic.

“You don’t happen to have a back door or anything?” Jon asked uselessly, because he could tell there was no other exit with a quick glance around the flat. 

“Nope, sorry,” Mike said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “But don’t worry, I can handle a couple police officers.”

Right, avatar with cool sky powers. Still. 

“Um, okay, be careful,” Jon said, before ducking down behind the couch because he was a coward and his only avatar powers were uncool and involved making people tell them about their trauma, which was not exactly helpful in a police confrontation. 

The person/people at the door knocked again, louder this time, and Jon shrank down further behind the couch. A second later, in quick succession, he heard the creak of the door opening, the click of a gun’s safety, a yelp of surprise rapidly drowned out by the sound of rushing air. 

And then, silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Jon's comment about dating as a sex repulsed ace is total projection! Definitely might not be true for other people. So take that with a grain of salt :')


	6. the terrible threat of tax fraud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More characters we know! Yay! Things pretty much get more and more fun from here on out, so I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

After a few terrifying seconds, during which Jon’s brain concocted approximately seventeen different possibilities for what had just happened, all of them horrible, the rushing sound died down and Mike’s voice rang out.

“All good!” he said cheerfully. “It was just one officer, and she’s definitely not going to be bothering us for a while.”

Jon peeked up over the back of the couch very slowly to see Mike standing alone by the open front door. 

“Uh. So, you—she—um. What just happened?” Jon thought he did a remarkable job of keeping the panic contained _inside_ of him and not letting it sneak out into his voice, but also his hands were shaking noticeably so on second thought he was actually doing a very shitty job and also he should probably sit down before he passed the fuck out and gave himself a concussion by whacking his head on Mike’s tasteful hardwood floors. 

Jon sank into the couch and put his head between his legs for a good few seconds, trying to breathe normally (well, breathe at all, really, since it had gotten very difficult in recent moments). Fucking useless leftover adrenaline. He heard the sound of the door closing and jogging footsteps as Mike, who must have clocked that _something_ was going on with Jon, made his way over to the couch. 

“Whoa, hey, you okay?” Mike said from somewhere to Jon’s left. 

“Peachy,” Jon said, raising his head slightly to give Mike what was probably a nightmare-inducing attempt at a smile. “But yes, sorry, just a bit of a panic attack. You know how it is.”

Mike probably didn’t, but he was a nice person (avatar, whatever) despite his character flaws of throwing people off buildings on the regular and forgetting murder was illegal, so all he said was, “Ah, right. Happens to the best of us.” 

After a minute or so, once Jon had regained the ability to breathe and his vision was no longer attempting to tunnel itself into blackness, he lifted his head and turned to where Mike had settled awkwardly on the couch beside him. “So, you didn’t get a chance to tell me before all of my panic attack excitement: what happened to the police officer, exactly?”

“Oh yeah, her,” Mike said with a little smirk. “I tossed her into the Vast to cool off for a bit.”

“So right now she’s—”

“Falling ceaselessly through an endless, infinite, beautiful sky where time and space and the concept of solid ground have no meaning?” Mike said, somewhat wistfully. “Yep.”

“Riiiight,” said Jon, “that’s what I was going to say. So she can’t like, get out on her own and pop up in this flat again, can she?”

Mike scoffed. “Definitely not. She has no power there. Here, on the other hand…I only really saw her for a second or two, but she was not human. I’m thinking Hunt, because her reflexes were insane. Also her eyes were like, yellow. If you hadn’t warned me… Well, let’s just say I owe you some serious thanks.”

“Oh, uh, my pleasure,” Jon said, flushing, because he was incapable of responding in a non-weird manner when people reacted to his actions in any sort of positive way. “I mean, you saved me from getting arrested or shot or whatever she was going to do, so I should be the one thanking _you_. Um. Thank you.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” Mike said teasingly, and then winked at Jon again. Apparently one of them was over the post-rejection awkwardness. 

Jon smiled back in a hopefully less nightmarish way than the last time. 

They sat in silence for a beat, but thankfully Mike started talking again before it could get weird.

“Well,” he said, letting out a long gust of breath, “want to hear the rest of my origin story?”

Jon very much did not, but it was only polite that he make himself sit through it, given how Mike had literally just saved his life, or at the very least his freedom. (The ache in his chest somewhere near his stomach and the half-formed thought “unfinished meal” had nothing to do with it, thank you very much.)

The rest of Mike’s backstory was vaguely interesting in a Wow I’m Glad I’m On The Good Side Of This Serial Killer way, but Jon was still kind of on edge, so he couldn’t really say he _enjoyed_ it. Also, Jon learned what a sugar daddy was, which he ideally could have gone his entire existence without knowing, but such was life. 

They devolved to just chatting about their respective terrible supernatural experiences after a while, and Jon was trying to think of the best way to politely extricate himself from the conversation without getting thrown out of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows (not that he really thought Mike would do something like that to him, but the chance was never _zero_ ) when there was another set of sharp raps on the door. 

Jon groaned in despair. For the love of Christ, not again. 

Mike raised an eyebrow at him. “I assume that’s some kind of backup, then?”

Resisting the urge to crawl under the couch, Jon nodded. “Probably. Sorry, I probably should have realized they’d send more police.” 

“Well, the Vast has endless space, so plenty of room for more cops,” Mike said mildly, already getting up from the couch. 

Before he could reach the door, though, an oddly familiar voice issued loudly from behind it: “Not here to arrest anyone; I just want to talk. Promise.”

Jon and Mike glanced at each other dubiously. 

The voice continued. “Here, I’m putting my gun on the ground. Now I’m sliding it away from me.” There was a soft shushing noise as if the gun was skidding across the outside hallway’s carpet. Or maybe it was some other object skidding and the cop was faking them out and really wanted to kill both of them. Or maybe Jon was paranoid. Or maybe both. 

“My name is Basira Hussain. I know Jonathan Sims is in there, and I just want to talk to him about the murder of Jurgen Leitner, because I’m reasonably sure he’s innocent.” 

Holy shit, wait, Basira? And she thought he was innocent? A _cop_ thought he was innocent? Jon was so pleasantly surprised that all he could do was blink at Mike lamely. 

Mike jerked his head at the door and raised his eyebrows at Jon, like, “Do I let her in?” Though it was also possible he was asking, “Can I toss her into the endless void for kicks?” Jon wasn’t the best at reading body language.

“Yes, she should be okay,” Jon whispered across the room at him.

“What?” Mike hissed back.

Jon gave him two thumbs up and the most winning smile he could manage (which _maybe_ would’ve cracked third place). 

Mike nodded in understanding (hopefully the right understanding, or they would be having a Situation) and went to open the door, Jon trailing after him. He thought maybe he could hide behind Mike if Basira actually did try to kill him, but as human shields went, Mike’s height made him slightly less than ideal. 

Basira was dressed in plainclothes, looking grim. As soon as the door opened, she snapped to attention, eyes roaming over the two of them and seeming to quickly catalogue all their weaknesses. Jon had forgotten how competent she was, but seeing it now scared and reassured him in equal measure. It was possible he was intimidated by competent people. No need to unpack things further there. 

Anyway. Jon stood on his tiptoes for a second and craned his neck to look out into the hallway, and sure enough, Basira’s gun was several meters to the left of her, which eased about a tenth of a tenth of Jon’s nerves (still a very measurable amount. Jon could easily win an Olympic medal in anxiety). At least she probably wasn’t going to shoot him. 

“So,” Basira said, business-like, “Jon. And you’re Mike Crew, correct?”

Mike nodded cautiously. Jon tried to smile at Basira. Basira narrowed her eyes at him. Yeah, that was fair. 

“Good. I’ll make this quick. From the investigation Daisy and I have been doing, looks like Elias was the one who killed Leitner. We need your help to confront him.”

Jon stared at her. “My help?” he echoed, baffled. 

“Yeah. Your whole ‘compel people to tell you things’ deal.” 

“Oh yeah, that. But all I can do is make people tell me about their traumatic supernatural encounters! How is that supposed to help?”

“It is _definitely_ way more than just that,” Basira said, looking at him like he was an idiot. Oh god, he _was_ an idiot. How had he not noticed this? He could have been, like. Uh. Getting people to tell him their bank PINs or something? God, he’d make a terrible supervillain. 

“So?” Basira asked impatiently. 

“Uhhhhhh,” Jon said, stalling for time. Did he really want to go confront his boss, who was likely the actual murderer of the person Jon had been lauded for weeks for killing? Absolutely not. Did he have a choice? Also probably absolutely not. 

“Hey, wait, I thought Jon killed Leitner,” Mike cut in, clearly a few seconds behind in the conversation. 

“Um, yeah, I did! Totally!” Jon said, somewhat unconvincingly. 

“No, he didn’t. You _know_ you didn’t. What are you playing at?” Basira snapped, scrutinizing him. 

“Just drop it,” Jon hissed at her through his teeth. 

She glared at him.

 _Please_ , Jon mouthed. 

Basira squinted at him irritably. 

“I can’t believe you’d besmirch Jon’s honor like that,” Mike said, interrupting their silent battle of wills, which was very kind and very misguided of him. “Jon is the Leitner Killer, and we all love him for it.”

Basira’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead and she gave Jon a nasty side-eye, but thank Christ, she played along. “Riiiight,” she said. “Yeah, you got me. But we really do need Jon to help us get his boss to confess. For...tax fraud.”

 _Tax fraud?_ Jon mouthed at her over Mike’s shoulder incredulously.

Mike somehow bought it, though. “Ah. Well, I guess as long as you’re not arresting him. He’s a real hero for that, you know?” He reached back to clap a hand on Jon’s shoulder, which became very awkward when he couldn’t reach it. 

“Uh huh. My hero,” Basira said dryly. After a second, she added, “Oh, you haven’t seen Daisy around, have you? I tracked her phone GPS to this address but it went all weird and glitchy like half an hour ago.”

Ah. Oops.


	7. back to the scene of the crime, like the dumbest murderer ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ended up being a bit of a transition chapter, but i think it still has some Good Jokes in there (though my definition of "good jokes" may vary greatly from yours). hope you enjoy!

“So,” said Jon, “about that.”

“What did you do,” Basira said flatly.

“I might’ve tossed her into the Vast,” Mike said, sounding only vaguely contrite. 

“You _what_.”

“She was trying to kill us! Showed up at the door, guns literally blazing!” Jon cried defensively, feeling the need to back Mike up since he really had saved Jon’s life with that little stunt. “Also did you know that she’s a servant of a terrifying eldritch being from beyond our world?”

Basira looked down at the hallway carpet, avoiding Jon’s eyes. “Ah. Suspected something was up, but I never really knew for sure what.”

“Well, the more you know,” Jon said dryly, and then mentally kicked himself in the shins for trying to make jokes at a time like this. 

Basira shook her head dismissively and caught Jon’s gaze with an uncomfortably intense stare. “We need her back for confronting Elias. No telling what the man’s capable of. Those, uh, tax evaders can be unpredictable.”

Jon turned reluctantly to Mike and raised an eyebrow. “Is it...uh...possible to get someone back from the Vast Dimension?”

Mike heaved an unnecessarily put-upon sigh. “Do I have to?”

Well, it wasn’t like Jon fucking wanted this either—Daisy was probably equally dangerous for either of them to be around. But Basira had a will of iron (no, Jon was _not_ jealous of how on top of things she always seemed) and clearly wasn’t going to leave until she got her partner back, so.

Jon made the closest approximation to a puppy dog face that he could manage (it probably looked more like he was about to break into tears, but no one was perfect), and said, “Please, Mike? For the Leitner Killer?”

“Well,” Mike said, drawing out the Ls for several seconds, “when you put it _that_ way…”

“Thank you, Mike, I really appreciate it,” Jon said, trying for a grateful smile. It seemed like he succeeded, since Mike smiled back at him. Jon cleared his throat surreptitiously at Basira until she coughed up a grudging “Thanks.” 

“So, how does it work, exactly?” Jon asked, after several seconds of nothing happening. 

“Oh, I’m not letting her out yet,” Mike said, sounding almost amused. “I’m not an idiot. I’ll drop her outside the building once you guys get down there.”

“Fair enough,” said Jon. 

“Fine,” said Basira. 

Mike ducked back inside and reappeared a moment later with Jon’s duffel bag. “Here, don’t forget your stuff.”

Jon definitely might have, because he was a fucking mess like that. He felt a swell of affection for this tiny, strangely kind serial killer. “Thank you for all the help, Mike. And the tea; it was very good.”

“Of course, anything for the great Leitner Killer,” Mike said, a bit teasingly, and handed Jon his duffel. “Oh, and here’s my number.” He produced a slip of paper seemingly from nowhere (another Vast power, maybe? That or Mike seriously needed to quit serial killing and follow his true calling: street magic) and held it out at Jon. “So you can text me when you guys are out of the building and ready for a cop delivery. And, you know, if you ever change your mind about that other thing.” And then he winked for the third time in like an hour. Well, at least he was consistent. 

Jon rolled his eyes and snatched the paper out of Mike’s hands, then turned to see Basira’s exasperated expression. 

“You two done?” 

“Yup,” Mike said, then nudged Jon out of the doorway, gave them both a slightly cheeky wave, and shut the door. 

Jon let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. 

“Come on,” Basira said shortly, already busy collecting her gun off the ground. 

“You really think Elias killed Leitner?” Jon asked her back as she leaned down. 

Basira holstered the gun and turned to face him. “Yes. He’s the only one other than you and your assistants with access to your office, and there’s no way either of those assistants beat a man to death with a pipe.”

“I mean, Martin’s arms look pretty strong,” Jon mused. 

Basira stared at him.

“Uh, I mean, what? Um. Yeah, no, I don’t think Tim or Martin would’ve done it.” 

“Whatever. Let’s go,” Basira said, and made her way over to the stairwell door without waiting for Jon to respond. 

Jon trailed after her until he remembered that he had to go back _down_ the staircase from hell. He briefly entertained the idea of knocking on Mike’s door again and asking him to throw Jon into the Vast and then pull him out with Daisy down on the sidewalk so he could skip the stairs, but unfortunately that would probably be an even worse experience, because nothing in his life was ever easy. 

“Jon!” Basira barked, her voice echoing in the stairwell. 

Ughhhhhhhh.

— 

They made it down to the bottom without any major mishaps, though if Jon’s legs were sentient, they would be trying to kill him for the suffering he’d forced them to endure twice in one day. 

Once they were out onto the pavement outside, Jon read Mike’s number from the slip of paper and typed it into his phone, then sent him a text that just said “we made it” with one of those party popper emojis. 

A few seconds later, there was the sound of rushing air again, plus a bit of screaming, and it was only thanks to Jon’s impeccable reflexes that he was able to jump to the side quick enough that Daisy smashed into the sidewalk instead of his head. 

Daisy groaned, in a generally dazed way, and Basira hurried over to her. “Hey, you okay, Daisy?” she asked, in the gentlest tone of voice Jon had ever heard from her. No way, was Basira actually a big softie at heart? Jon carefully tucked this fact away, never to be mentioned to her face unless he wanted to get fucking destroyed. 

Daisy groaned again, this time in a distinctly angry manner. Jon assumed that was supposed to mean something like, “I’m going to fucking kill that piece of shit little man with my bare hands.” 

Basira hummed understandingly. “Up you get,” she said, draping Daisy’s arm over her shoulder and levering her up carefully until she was standing, in a generous definition of the word. Daisy actually didn’t look too bad, all things considered. Pretty windblown, and a little banged and scraped up from her graceful exit directly into the pavement, but it honestly seemed like Mike had gone easy on her.

Basira started marching Daisy down the sidewalk, presumably back to her car, and Jon again trailed after cautiously. Once Basira had maneuvered Daisy into the front seat with considerable difficulty (Jon refused to help because he was pretty sure Daisy was still gunning for him, even in her probably concussed state, and he didn’t want to get within grabbing range), she pointed to the backseat and jerked her head at him expectantly. 

Jon got obediently in the car and hoped this wasn’t just a really long con of Basira’s in order to secretly arrest him. Well, at least it wasn’t a police cruiser, so he wasn’t behind bars. Yet.

Once Daisy regained the ability to do anything other than make pained groans and mumble things that Jon thought sounded like all the different ways she was going to torture “that evil midget,” she immediately tried to strangle Jon to death. Thankfully this was highly ineffective since they were in a moving car and Jon had wisely chosen the seat behind Basira, and Daisy just looked really dumb straining against the seatbelt and repeatedly trying to grab him. 

“Daisy, stop,” Basira said sharply yet reluctantly. “We need his help to get the actual killer to confess. It’s the head of the Institute.”

Daisy stopped growling ferally and looked over at Basira. “You're sure?”

“Yeah,” Basira said, giving her some kind of significant look that Jon didn't have the social skills to decode.

Daisy slumped back into her seat with clear annoyance that she wasn’t going to get to murder Jon.

Jon carefully eased himself away from the car door, which his entire body had gotten very well acquainted with in the past few seconds, and back into his seat.

“So, that's where we’re going now? Confront him?” Daisy asked, inspecting one of the concrete-induced scrapes on her arm. 

“Yep,” said Basira.

“Thanks for not killing me,” Jon put in, just to be polite.

“Day’s not over yet,” Daisy said, bland enough that Jon had no idea if she was joking or not. Wonderful.

Daisy failed to offer any further explanation, and the car descended into an uncomfortable silence that wasn’t broken the entire way to the Institute, except for when Basira went into a slight road rage after someone cut her off. 

At last, they pulled into the Institute's tiny parking lot. It was...very weird, being back. After weeks upon weeks of bouncing around strangers’ homes, the familiarity of the imposing building was somehow simultaneously comforting and terrifying. Jon’s brain was talented like that.

As he followed Daisy and Basira into the Institute (keeping Basira between himself and Daisy at all times, because even if it made him look like an idiot, he’d much rather be an alive idiot than a dead cool and normal-seeming person), he felt the tingling sense of being watched, which he could now identify as a side effect of the place being a damn temple to the evil eldritch god of stalkers, wash over him. 

Well, here went nothing.


	8. how to survive confronting your evil eldritch monster boss about murdering some guy everyone thinks you killed (an instructional guide by jonathan sims)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all right, confrontation at last!! i'm thinking there'll be one or two more chapters after this, so the story is wrapping up, but there's definitely still more fun to come :)
> 
> if you're feeling it, let me know what you liked (if anything lol) in this chapter!

“Okay,” said Basira as they ascended yet another staircase on the way to Elias’s office, “here’s how this is going to go: Jon, you ask him if he killed Leitner and/or Gertrude Robinson, and we’re going to record his answer. Daisy will have her gun out just in case he tries to run or attack us, and I’ll be recording.”

“Mhmm,” Jon said, though it came out sounding much higher pitched than intended. He was not exactly looking forward to talking to the man who’d actually murdered Leitner in the coldest of bloods with a goddamn metal pipe. This was a bad idea. This was such a bad idea. What was the point of trying to get the real killer to confess when just going along with the assumption that Jon was responsible had opened so many doors (literally) for him? 

“But actually, you know, are you sure you really need me for this? You two are so...competent! I have total faith that you can handle this on your own without me.”

Basira stopped moving and turned back to glare at him. “You’re coming, Sims.”

Jon laughed, just slightly past the edge of hysteria. “I’m sure I would just complicate things. Why don’t I just go back down to the Archives and wait for you to—”

Daisy growled low in her throat, and Jon’s jaw snapped shut in some sort of lizard-brain primal instinct. 

“There you go,” Basira said, with a rude amount of amusement.

They resumed climbing. Jon wished this staircase would be as endless as the one in Mike’s building, but alas, within a minute, they were making their way down the hallway towards Elias’s office, and then suddenly they were at the door and Daisy was grabbing the doorknob and turning it, her gun in her other hand, and Basira was yanking Jon in by the arm.

And there was Elias, sitting calmly at his desk, looking the same as he always did with his expensive suit and coiffed hair. Although, as Jon looked closer, Elias’s expression was definitely several degrees closer to rage than his usual neutral mask, and his hair wasn’t looking quite as neat as usual, almost as if he’d been running his hands through it in frustration or something. Probably not a great sign. 

“Hello, Jon. You’re looking...well,” Elias said, in a tone of voice that seemed to suggest he had been wishing desperately for the opposite. He glanced at Basira and Daisy, who was now pointing her gun at him, and half rolled his eyes. “Detectives. To what do I owe this visit?”

“Don’t play coy, Bouchard,” Basira said flatly. Then she turned to Jon. “Go on, ask him.”

“Um. Did you kill Jurgen Leitner and Gertrude Robinson?” Jon got out. He couldn’t tell if he had actually managed to use his evil eldritch entity powers at first (because they didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual), but then Elias shivered weirdly.

“Nice try,” he said, somewhat irritably. “Now it’s my turn for a question. How did you emerge so...unscathed from meetings with multiple avatars?”

“You first,” Jon said, noticing out of the corner of his eye how close Daisy’s finger was to the trigger and hoping to avoid involvement in yet another murder. One per month was more than enough. One per life, actually! He was full up on murder entanglements forever, at this point! No one else was allowed to murder anyone else when he was around!

Elias actually scoffed at that. “Fine. Yes, I killed them. It hardly matters at this point. Also, you realize if you try to turn me in, I’ll release all the evidence I have on the murders Detective Tonner over there has committed, and the two of you will be...cleaned up by the department. And if you kill me, it’ll still be released. So I don’t advise trying anything.”

Basira and Daisy exchanged another one of their meaningful glances, and again Jon had absolutely no guess at the meaning. He prayed it was something like “yeah, maybe let’s not kill this man and get poor Jon, who’s been on the run for weeks, involved in yet another goddamn motherfucking murder” and not “fuck it, let’s kill him anyway and just go on the run to avoid the consequences, because who gives a shit about what happens to Jonathan Sims, fuck that guy!”

Fortunately, whatever the glance had meant, there was no immediate murder of anyone. Daisy curled her lip and Basira frowned mightily, but they didn’t do anything more than glare at Elias, who cracked a distinctly smirk-like smile in response. 

“Now,” he said, flicking his uncomfortably intense gaze at Jon, “back to my question. How did your meetings with the avatars go so well?”

“About that,” said Jon. “Everyone thinks I killed Leitner, and they love me for it. So I suppose your framing job didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“Really,” said Elias, through gritted teeth. “How...interesting.” A vein bulged slightly in his temple. 

“Yep,” Jon said. “Good talk. I think I should go back to work, now that you confessed and everything.” He thought for a second and then added, because he was the nicest person ever, “Also, if you try to get Basira or Daisy killed, I’ll sic my new friends on you. That includes a good portion of the Institute’s staff, just so you know.” 

Elias stared at him in some unholy combination of rage and disbelief, evidently having been rendered speechless. Possibly by the sheer hubris of Jon’s threat. 

“Thanks, Jon,” Basira said, grudgingly, because she was the ungrateful-est person ever. Christ, he was trying to do them a favor here even though Basira had practically kidnapped him from Mike’s flat and Daisy had tried to kill him twice. A little genuine gratitude wouldn’t be out of place (though, actually, this was probably the most genuine acknowledgement he’d ever be able to get out of either of these two).

Elias finally managed to open his mouth, angrily. “Jon, I do not think you want to do this with me. You clearly know what I’m capable of.” 

But Jon had finally found his never-before-tapped well of confidence, and he was on a fucking roll. “And I have dozens of people and non-people who think I’m the pinnacle of humanity for killing Leitner. What do you think they’ll do to you if you kill me?”

Elias’s face twisted with anger. Several more veins popped out on his temples. Well, that probably wasn’t healthy. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Jon,” he said threateningly. 

“No, you,” said Jon. 

Then, he turned and walked out of the room, Basira and Daisy on his heels. 

He made it all the way to the stairwell before having a minor panic attack, which was honestly very impressive for his track record. Basira and Daisy waited patiently next to him as he got his breathing back to a non-hyperventilating rate, and then Basira actually patted him on the shoulder and told him he’d done an “okay job back there.” Daisy grunted and nodded her agreement. 

Now _this_ was the kind of backhanded praise he could handle without feeling like a massive fraud because he hadn’t actually murdered the person people were complimenting him for murdering.

“Thanks,” he said honestly. “Glad I could help. Hopefully he doesn’t try to kill all of us anyway because we embarrassed him.”

“Yeah, probably should watch out for that,” Basira said dryly. “Especially if you’re actually going to keep working here.” 

Right, that. Jon had briefly considered the idea of quitting, but it just didn’t seem right. He had work to do. Statements to read. Clown apocalypses (apocalypsi?) to stop, which Jon actually definitely had to talk to Elias about at some point, since he was pretty sure Elias had been the mystery statement sender. Probably best to let the man cool off a bit before that, though. 

“Yes, I’m going to be staying here. You’re not going to turn Elias in, right? I don’t think he was bluffing about whatever evidence he has on you,” Jon said, turning to look at Daisy. 

She bared her teeth in frustration but shook her head. “No, he probably does have it. I’ll figure out another way to get the bastard.”

“Well, good luck,” Jon said, somewhat skeptical. But as long as she didn’t involve him at all, she could knock herself out trying to take down Elias. 

Daisy nodded her thanks, and Basira opened the door to the staircase. 

“See you around, Jon,” Basira said.

“Not to be rude, but I’d really rather not see either of you again.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Basira said, and Daisy smiled in an uncomfortably feral way. “Bye.”

Then they both stepped into the staircase and let the door clang shut behind them. 

Jon stood still for a couple seconds before realizing that he had to go the same direction they had if he wanted to get down to the Archives and decided he’d rather die than run into them after having already said goodbye. 

Fuck the stairs. He’d just beaten Elias in a verbal confrontation and barely had a panic attack afterwards. If that didn’t deserve a reward, nothing did. Jon was taking the goddamn elevator.


	9. in which everything is totally going back to normal and clearly nothing surprising and/or unexpected will happen because jon's had a long enough day and to be honest does NOT have the energy to deal with ANYTHING else other than MAYBE some small talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer than normal wait! Probably one more chapter to go, though I post these as I write them so I could totally be lying to you.
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

Of course, since nothing good ever lasted for more than approximately 47 seconds in Jon’s miserable life, when the elevator stopped one floor down, he ran into another employee who seemed to know who he was (if the man’s outright hero worship stare was any indication). And of course, Jon hadn’t the fucking foggiest who _he_ was. Great, the most fun kind of social interaction.

Jon immediately opted for his tried and true strategy of not talking to people, which was staring fascinatedly at the floor tiles as if divining the secrets to the universe. 

It didn’t work. 

“Hey, you’re Jon Sims, right? I’m Alex, _huge_ fan. I heard you were exonerated and the police stopped hunting you, but don’t worry, we all know you just had to lie to keep out of jail.”

How Alex had heard about something that had literally happened minutes ago was an intriguing mystery that Jon would bet a rib involved Harry and his damn group chat (though he couldn’t say for sure, since he’d muted it a couple weeks ago. They just Never Shut Up). He reluctantly abandoned the tiles and made the requisite eye contact. 

You know what? Fuck it. Jon might as well go all in on this murderous savior of society thing, not the least because he wasn’t eager to experience the fallout if word ever got out that it wasn’t true. Mike would probably throw him out a window or something.

“Yep, just had to lie so I wasn’t charged with murder. You’re completely correct. Also, you’re welcome.”

Alex smiled brilliantly at him. “Awesome, I knew it! And thanks, I fucking hated that guy. My wife got eaten by one of his books a few years ago.”

Holy shit. “Oh Christ, I’m so sorry,” Jon said, now actively feeling kind of bad. This was why he didn’t usually say fuck it! It always ended in guilt and disaster. 

It was possible that Jon tended to catastrophize things, but that was a psychoanalysis for another time! 

Alex waved him off. “Nah, it’s all good. I know you got revenge for me!”

Jon was saved from further conversation by the elevator landing on the main floor, which he used as an excuse to quickly flee both the elevator and the moral dilemmas engendered by this encounter. 

Unfortunately, he would have to take the stairs down to the Archives from here, because the elevator didn’t go to the basement. Yes, that was definitely an HSE violation. (Elias was a murderer and supernatural servant of an eldritch god, and he also apparently hated disabled people; say what you would about him, but the man truly had range.)

— 

Jon opened the door to the Archives and was immediately spotted by all of his assistants. 

“Uh, hello,” he said lamely. 

Melanie, Tim, and Martin stared at him for a second.

Then Martin broke the silence with a smile and a cheery “Welcome back, Jon!”

“Thanks, Martin,” Jon said, giving him a small smile back. At least Martin wasn’t immediately praising him for murder. That was a welcome change. 

Also, wait a second, Melanie was working at the Institute now? This was what he got for muting Harry’s group chat.

Naturally Jon had jumped the gun on the whole “thank god, no murder praise” thought, because in the next few moments, Tim and Melanie seemed to recover from the shock of seeing their boss for the first time after he’d been on the run for weeks.

“So I have no idea who the fuck that Lighter guy everyone is talking about is, but I guess congrats on killing him,” Melanie said, shrugging. 

“It’s Leitner, Melanie,” Tim informed her grumpily. “Also, Jon, you’re still an asshole and fuck you, but yeah, you did do society a solid by offing him. That dude was fucked.” 

“Sor-ry, I’m not up to date on all the Institute lore yet,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes at Tim. 

_Lore?_ Jon mouthed without conscious input from his brain. 

Martin shook his head like _don’t even ask._ “Yeah, I don’t normally condone things like, uh, murder, but that man was awful! You, um, really, did the world a favor!” 

Great. Jon had committed to going with it, though, so he smiled and nodded and returned some pleasantries for a bit before pretending he had urgent work to do and dashing into his office and shutting the door perhaps more firmly than necessary. 

To be fair, he probably _should_ be looking into the clown apocalypse and whatnot, but it had been an exhausting day, and once Jon made the mistake of putting his face down on the desk, he discovered he didn’t have enough energy to lift it back up. 

He was interrupted from communing with the mess of statements pressed up against his cheek by a knock on the door. Ugh. 

“What is it?” he called, slightly muffled due to his communion with the statements. 

“It’s Martin! Uh, can I talk to you for a second?”

Jon groaned (internally — wasn’t he the very model of politeness?) and told Martin to come in, again without lifting his face. 

The door creaked open and then closed, and he heard Martin’s soft footsteps approach the desk. 

“Jon...you okay?” Martin asked, sounding genuinely concerned. Fucking Martin and his _concern_ and his _caring about people_ and his _being an authentically nice human being_. 

“Yep,” Jon croaked, lifting his head a few centimeters so he could actually see Martin. 

“D’you want some, like....tea or something?” Martin asked, looking at Jon with an uncomfortably kind expression. 

“‘M good,” Jon said, “but thanks.” He removed his head from the desk with a Herculean effort. “What did you need?”

“Ah, just,” Martin said, then trailed off, now seeming embarrassed for some reason. Martin’s emotions were truly a neverending mystery. 

“Yes?” Jon prompted.

“You didn’t actually kill Jurgen Leitner, did you? I mean, it’s okay if you did, I’m sure it was self defense or something, I mean, you must have had a reason, right, because I know you wouldn’t just _kill_ someone like that, wo—”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon cut in, since it was just getting kind of weird and sad watching Martin try to justify cold blooded murder. 

“Oh thank god,” Martin said, putting a hand over his chest sort of dramatically. “I was kind of just going along with it, but seriously, what the hell is wrong with everyone?”

“I have no goddamn idea,” Jon said truthfully. “It’s been like this for weeks now for me. Just, uh, do me a favor and don’t let that get around. I think I might get murdered by some avatars if they find out I was ‘tricking’ them.” 

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Martin said with perfect sincerity, doing the whole zipping his lips and throwing away the key motion like he was in fourth grade. Jon steadfastly ignored the little voice in his brain that was saying something disgustingly sappy like, “I missed this. I missed him.” This was _not_ at all endearing. Nope. 

“...Thanks,” Jon said dryly, beating back the little voice in his brain with a mental broom. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Martin said, apparently not getting the hint that the conversation was over. To be fair, Jon was very bad at giving conversational hints, so that could be on him. “It sounds like it was a pretty rough month. I was getting regular updates from Harry at work, so I was pretty sure you were okay, but I was still a bit worried. I really wanted to help, but the police were definitely watching me, and I probably just would’ve just put you in more danger. So, um, I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“I’m still not sure how I feel about you giving out my phone number to some random coworker, but I suppose Harry and his friends did end up helping me a lot. So...thank you. And I did guess that the police would be keeping an eye on you, so I can’t really blame you for that.” Jon gave Martin a half-smile, which was actually the most genuine kind of smile he was able to produce, because all the rest of them somehow ended up appearing very forced and tended to make Jon look like an insane person. 

Martin smiled back, and annoyingly the stupid voice in Jon’s brain noted that he did have a really nice smile, actually. Then Martin squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and said, “So, totally unrelated, but would you maybe want to have dinner with me sometime?” 

_What?_


	10. welcome back, leitner killer (affectionate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!! Thanks again to @bigowlenergy on tumblr for the galaxy brained idea that inspired this fic, and thank you to everyone who's kudosed or commented (y'all are amazing)! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this crazy fic <3

“ _What?_ ” said Jon, before his brain could really process what he’d just heard Martin say. 

Martin wilted immediately. “...Like, a date,” he said quietly, looking everywhere but at Jon. 

“What?” said Jon.

“Never mind, this is totally inappropriate,” Martin said in a rush. “I can’t believe I just asked you that, you’re probably not even _gay_ —” 

“Martin,” Jon interrupted, holding up a hand to stay the absolute torrent of backtracking that was now flowing from Martin’s mouth. “I am very bi, so that part you don’t have to worry about. Just...give me a minute to think about it. Please. It’s been a hell of a month, and I seriously cannot think straight, pun not intended. I’m not saying no, I’m just saying, uh, let me process?”

There were definitely certain...feelings, one might say, present in Jon’s mind about Martin these days that hadn’t been there a year or two ago, but what with the constant living a lie and being a fugitive this past month, there hadn’t exactly been much time to process those Feelings. Also there was the fact that Jon had been chasing them out of his mind repeatedly with mental brooms. That probably hadn’t helped. And of course there was the whole sex-repulsed asexual can of worms...

Martin’s expression had morphed into something far more relieved, if somewhat guilty. “Of course, yeah, processing, very important! So sorry to have disturbed you! I’ll just, um, get out of your hair now!”

Martin attempted to beat a very hasty retreat from the office, hasty enough that he accidentally smacked his head on the doorframe, apologized to the doorframe, and made it through the doorframe before Jon could respond.

“See you tomorrow, Martin,” Jon said right as Martin swept the door closed behind himself, trying not to let too much amusement bleed into his tone. It was kind of flattering, actually, having someone this flustered around him. Well. Anyway. 

Jon sighed and readied himself for a good few hours of processing and soul-searching, but found his eyelids were behaving rather weirdly and drooping down, and actually his brain was feeling a little fuzzy too, so maybe he’d better just put his head back down on the desk like so for a little rest first. 

Which was his last thought before he fell immediately into unconsciousness. 

— 

Jon woke up to the sound of voices, which was strange. Why were there voices? Also, fuck, he’d fallen asleep at his desk again.

He pried his face from the desk with some difficulty. A couple statements might possibly have some interesting drool stains on them now, but wasn’t that just part of life? 

Actually, those voices were quite loud. And there were quite a lot of them, way more than the three that could be attributed to his assistants. What the hell was going on?

Jon scrambled out of his chair, ignoring the massive ache in his back (and strange sensation of refreshment) that suggested he had been sleeping for far longer than a normal nap length, and fumbled open his door. 

The Archives proper was absolutely flooded with people. And red streamers. And distinctly crimson balloons. And banners that said, “Welcome Back, Jon!” and “Welcome Back, Leitner Killer!” and “Welcome Back, Our Favorite Murderer!”

What. The fuck.

Some of the people nearest to the door of his office apparently noticed that Jon was standing there staring wordlessly at whatever godforsaken gathering was occurring here, because they started smiling and pointing at him and saying the phrases from the banners a lot.

Jon valiantly resisted the overwhelming urge to turn tail and retreat into his office and not come out until all these fucking people were out of his Archives, and instead said, “Hello?”

“Hi, Jon,” chorused several more people, who Jon was now beginning to recognize vaguely as fellow Institute employees. 

“Um. If you don’t mind me asking, what is all this?” Jon said very calmly. 

“It’s your welcome back party, of course!” said someone on the left side of the room, making their way towards him through the crowd. Oh, it was Harry. Of fucking course it was Harry. “We just wanted to do something special for you, you know? To show you how much you mean to all of us.”

“Right,” said Jon faintly. “Of course.” 

“Champagne?” asked Harry, who, having reached Jon, was now inexplicably holding out a bottle of it. 

“Er, no thanks.” 

Jon desperately tried to figure out what time of the day it was from context clues, but since the Archives was in the basement and had no goddamn windows, and he was pretty sure all these people were unhinged enough to drink at any hour, he honestly had no idea. Also, everyone was staring at him and it was making him want to shrivel up and die. Harry deserved to burn in hell for this, no matter how good his omelettes were. 

“How about a speech?” Harry suggested, unperturbed by Jon’s refusal or the unholy expression of confusion/anger/terror that was likely plastered onto Jon’s face at the moment. 

“Yeah, speech!” said the crowd. 

“Uh, no, no thank you,” Jon said.

“ _Speech!_ ” demanded the crowd.

“Okay!” Jon said, because as much as he hated public speaking, being ripped apart by an angry crowd or publically shamed for not doing a speech or whatever other horrible thing that would inevitably happen if he refused was definitely worse. 

“Speech, yes. Um. When I killed Leitner with that enormous metal pipe, I thought I was killing him for me. You know, in self defense. But I was really killing him for all of you, and I am so honored to have been of service to all you...wonderful people. Thank you.”

The crowd cheered, and, thank Christ, went immediately back to mingling. 

“Short and sweet, nice!” Harry said, patting him on the shoulder.

“Please don’t pat me on the shoulder,” Jon said, as politely as he could manage.

“No doubt, no doubt,” Harry said, putting his hand awkwardly back at his side. “Well, see you around. Enjoy the party!”

And with that, Harry disappeared back into the crowd. 

This was fine. This was great! Jon loved random fucking parties being thrown at an unspecified time of day in his Archives to honor him for a murder he hadn’t committed! Very cool! Ha ha!

He attempted to distract himself from an impending breakdown by seeing if he could recognize any more people in the crowd. He easily picked out Natalie and several other employees he’d stayed with; Tim and Melanie, who were chatting sullenly; Jude Perry, who had a healthy bubble of personal space around her; and Mike Crew, who caught Jon’s eye and winked at him from across the room. Jon decided not to even try to speculate how and why the two avatars were here for the sake of his mental stability. 

As he cast his gaze towards the far side of the Archives, he also noticed Martin, leaning against the wall in a corner and looking as uncomfortable as Jon felt. Jon experienced an immediate surge of solidarity and started threading his way through the mass of people in Martin’s direction. 

Near the middle of the crowd, Jon overheard a snatch of conversation between one of the employees whose flat he’d crashed at and someone who sounded suspiciously like Elias.

“It was actually I who killed Leitner, you know,” said probably-Elias, sounding exceedingly irritated. 

“I can’t believe you’re trying to steal Jon’s glory like that! My god, Mr. Bouchard, read the room.” 

Jon ducked several meters to the left after that, since he had absolutely no desire to get fucking murdered by his boss in the middle of his own welcome back party, and eventually squeezed and shoved his way over to Martin’s corner. 

It was then that he realized he had done absolutely none of the “processing” he had promised Martin yesterday (today? Jon still wasn’t clear on the date or time. His phone was very out of battery). But it was too late, because Martin had spotted him. 

“Oh, hey Jon,” Martin said, instantly brightening. 

“Not a big fan of the party?” Jon joked weakly.

“Ah, uh, not really my...scene.” Martin smiled awkwardly at him, and Jon’s lips curved up as if on reflex. 

“Not really mine either,” Jon admitted, though that had probably been obvious if Martin had listened to Jon’s little speech or had even a modicum of knowledge of body language. “About what you asked yesterday, or I assume it was yesterday, honestly I’m really not sure what time it is—”

“Oh, you don’t have to—” Martin cut in nervously.

“No, but I want to.” Which was somehow true. Maybe Jon’s brain had actually been processing while he was sleeping? Didn’t they say your subconscious mind could work out things you’d been thinking about before you fell asleep while you were unconscious? Damn it, he was already getting distracted. 

“Oh,” said Martin softly.

“Right.” Jon cleared his throat. “I think I would like to take you up on that dinner offer. But first I want to make it clear that I’m asexual, so don’t be expecting to, um, what’s the phrase, ‘get lucky.’”

Martin blushed, but he was smiling, too. “I wouldn’t be expecting to—I mean, that’s totally fine! Sex is definitely not any sort of requirement. I like you for you. Your personality, I mean.”

“No offense, Martin,” Jon said dryly, “but I believe you have terrible taste in men.”

“I happen to think I have great taste in men, actually,” Martin said fondly, which made Jon cheeks heat up as well. God, they were both embarrassed wrecks, weren’t they? Perfect for each other. 

Jon had another sudden realization, this time that he and Martin had done all this in the middle of a giant party in full view and earshot of many dozens of people and wanted to die of embarrassment even more. Fucking hell, how many people had heard? He checked surreptitiously over his shoulder, but someone up there must have been smiling down on him today or something, because as far as Jon could tell, no one was actually looking at him or Martin at the moment. 

A brilliant idea occurred to Jon, and he turned back to Martin. “You know, I still don’t know what time it is, but would you like to get out of here and have our time-of-day appropriate meal now?”

Martin beamed at him. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Jon. And since you were wondering, it’s about 10am.” 

Well, apparently he’d been right about the unhinged day drinkers of the Institute. Also, dear god, he’d taken something like a 16-hour nap. No wonder he felt so strangely refreshed. 

“Brunch it is, I suppose,” Jon said. It would definitely be a new experience for him, but literally anything was better than this party, so not a high bar.

“I know a perfect place with the best tea you’ve ever tasted!” 

“Even better than yours?” Jon teased. Because damn, Martin’s tea was good, and it was probably about time Jon appreciated it more. 

“Just a smidge,” Martin said, his cheeks dimpling adorably. Jon relished the fact that this time he did _not_ have to swat that particular thought away. 

“Well, then,” he said warmly, “lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One short little note about Jon disclosing his asexuality to Martin right off the bat: this is not something any ace person is required to do! The reason I had Jon do it is because, in this fic at least, he's had some bad experiences with dating when he doesn't lay it out on the table right away, so he wanted to tell Martin well before anything got serious :)


End file.
